Uncle Percival never realised this more hopelessly
than in that unresponsive headshake of dismissal. Laura could be kind,
he knew, but she was kind, as she was a poet, when the mood prompted.

"Presently--not now," she said, "I want to talk to you awhile. Do you
know, Aunt Rosa was here again to-day and she still tries to persuade us
to sell the house and move uptown. It is so far for her to come from
Seventieth Street, she says, but as for me I'd positively hate the
change and Aunt Angela can't even stand the mention of it." She leaned
forward and stroked his arm with one of her earnest gestures. "What
would you do uptown, dear Uncle Percival?" she inquired gently.

The old man laid the flute on his knees, where his shrunken little hands
still caressed it. "Do? why I'd die if you dragged me away from my
roots," he answered.

Laura smiled, still smoothing him down as if he were an amiable dog.
"Well, the Park is very pleasant, you know," she returned, "and it is
full of walks, too. You wouldn't lack space for exercise."

"The Park? Pooh!" piped Uncle Percival, raising his voice; "I wouldn't
give these streets for the whole of Central Park together. Why, I've
seen these pavements laid and relaid for seventy years and I remember
all the men who walked over them. Did I ever tell you of the time I
strolled through Irving Place with Thackeray? As for Central Park, it
hasn't an ounce--not an ounce of atmosphere."

"Oh, well, that settles it," laughed Laura. "We'll keep to our own
roots. We are all of one mind, you and Aunt Angela and I."

"I'm sure Angela would never hear of it," pursued Uncle Percival, "and
in her affliction how could one expect it?"

For a moment Laura looked at him in a compassionate pause before she
made her spring. "There's nothing in the world the matter with Aunt
Angela," she said; "she's perfectly well."

Blank wonder crept into the old gentleman's little blue eyes and he
shook his head several times in solemn if voiceless protest. Forty years
ago Angela Wilde, as a girl of twenty, had in the accustomed family
phrase "brought lasting disgrace upon them," and she had dwelt, as it
were, in the shadow of the pillory ever since. Unmarried she had yielded
herself to a lover, and afterward when the full scandal had burst upon
her head, though she had not then reached the fulfilment of a singularly
charming beauty, she had condemned herself to the life of a solitary
prisoner within four walls. She ha